Canada

Meanwhile, BC United has committed to scrap the CleanBC plan, saying it “will kill jobs, kill paycheques, kill billions in funding for vital public services and plunge our province into a recession.”

If anything, B.C.’s progress in reducing emissions has been too slow for such a wealthy place in light of the climate emergency we find ourselves in. As of 2021, B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions were a mere three per cent below 2007 levels, even as the economy was still emerging from COVID-19 shutdowns that year.

The consequences of inaction are becoming painfully clear, globally and locally. We estimated economic costs of $10.6 billion to $17.1 billion from B.C.’s 2021 extreme weather trilogy of heat dome, wildfires and floods/landslides. Nearly 600 people died in the heat dome event alone, a call to action if ever there was one.

Despite this, the provincial government remains overly concerned about introducing climate action that affects industry’s “competitiveness.” It has overseen a major expansion of the oil and gas industry, with gas production up 40 per cent in 2022 relative to 2017 — when the current government was first elected — and 126 per cent higher than 2007, when B.C. first legislated GHG reduction targets.